Bike Light Database

The Knog Frog is a bit of an outlier – it’s small, attaches to almost anything by wrapping its little rubber strap around and hooking onto itself, and it’s powered by two little CR2032 batteries, instead of normal AA or AAAs. It’s tiny, cheap, and brighter than I expected – but still puts out the least light of any of lights I tested. At $10 for the light and about $3 for a CR2032, it’s almost cheaper to buy a new one each time (batteries included) instead of replacing them. This light was dimmer than even the very cheapest flasher I could find on Amazon (reviewed below), and given its expensive non-standard batteries and low output, I don’t particularly recommend it. Unless you really need to wrap it on something which you just can’t fit a normal light on, the Frog is not the best deal, and its popularity perplexes me.

While the original Super Flash is starting to show its age, the newer Super Flash Turbo is an impressive adaptation of its older sibling. Although it looks almost identical at first sight, it doubles the power with a 1-watt primary LED, and is blindingly bright. The first time I rode with the Super Flash Turbo on my bike, I was surprised to see it lighting up stop signs 4 blocks behind me. For all of the brightness measurements, I set the lights to solid (non-flashing) mode, because the light meter is not precise enough to capture brightness over the short period of time of a single flash. For each of the lights I attempted to get some data in flashing mode, and was surprised to see that for the Turbo, it shined brighter when flashing than when solid. In flashing mode I measured a max of 12,000 lux, making this one of the brightest lights available. The light also had very good side visibility. This added brightness comes at the price of battery life though – the light only lasted 24 hours before dimming, although it kept flashing weakly for nearly a week after it lost its initial luster.

It was always very easy to replace the batteries in my trusty ol’ Super Flash, and I expected the same of this light. As it turns out, the casing on the Turbo is much more rigid, and cannot be opened by hand – it requires a coin to twist in the opening slot to leverage the case open. This may be in response to customers’ complaints of the casing coming apart too easily, causing people to lose their lights. The downside is that makes it hard to replace the batteries quickly if you don’t have a coin handy. Not a huge issue, and arguably an improvement, but definitely a difference between this and other PB lights. Overall the Planet Bike Superflash Turbo is a very strong light. Its flash pattern is random and attention-grabbing, even more so than its predecessor’s, and it’s a drop-in replacement (or good accompaniment) to an existing

This light is by all accounts the most popular one out there. It was one of the first super-bright LED lights to hit the market, and continues to be very popular. So how does it stack up against the modern competition? (Disclaimer – mine’s several years old, so although I did give the outside a good wiping down, and LEDs shouldn’t degrade over time, a brand-new one might perform better).

As it turns out, the Super Flash isn’t the brightest light out there – it has reasonable visibility from the side, but is only about average in terms of brightness. What makes this light stand out isn’t the amount of light it puts out, but rather how it does it: the Super Flash was one of the first bike lights to implement a rapid strobing pattering to grab drivers’ eyes. Despite being dimmer than other lights, it caught my eye better than brighter but more mild-mannered blinky lights. With a 1/2 watt LED, it also runs longer on a charge than some newer, brighter lights do: In my testing, it remained very bright for 52 hours, remained visible for another 22, and was still flashing feebly after an entire week of runtime. Overall, the Super Flash is still a good choice, but at $24 you can certainly get something brighter. It may seem that the Super Flash’s reign is over, but Planet Bike is determined to hold their top spot, and the new Super Flash Turbo may do just that.

The Blinky 7 comes in the same shape as the Super Flash and Turbo, but instead of a large high-power LED, it has 7 lower power (but still bright) LEDs arranged in a circular array. Three face directly to the back, and two on each side faces out at 45 and 90 degrees. This gives the light a claimed 220 degrees of visibility. The light is not particularly bright in any one direction, but does have better side visibility than some lights. Although I wouldn’t recommend it as a primary light, it makes for a decent secondary light if you use two lights at once, as recommended.

The Rack Blinky 5 uses the same low-power 5mm LEDs as the Blinky 7, but all in a straight array facing directly back. This kit comes with a rack mount included, making it easy to attach to the back of your bike. It uses the same mounting clip as other PB lights, but has a slightly wider, shorter profile. This light was surprisingly bright for a blinky, although it’s still dim next to either of the Super Flashers. One aspect of the Blinky 5 I am impressed with is the wide spread of light. Even from off-angles, it’s easy to see.

The biggest downside to this light is its on/off button. Whereas most PB lights are too difficult to turn on, this one is far too easy. It is controlled by a large soft push button on the back, which is way too easy to bump in your pack. I always take my lights off to prevent them from being stolen, and several times went to look for something in my pack, and found this light flashing away. A simple time-delay like many other manufacturers’ lights would help this problem.

I distinctly remember the first time I saw a Danger Zone in the wild: its wild blitzing flash pattern caught my eye from several blocks away, promoting me to bike like mad to catch its owner and ask them what light it was. This light implements two 0.5 watt LEDs next to each other, giving it a unique design.

The DZ has two flashing modes: a slow, steady pulse which alternates between the left, right, and both LEDs; and a rapid blitz which quickly alternates between the two lights for a few moments, then pulses each LED once. The first mode is much easier on the eyes if biking with other people, but when in crazy traffic or on a road without bike lanes, the blitz mode is wonderfully attention-grabbing.

The Red Planet is PDW’s cheapest light, at $15. It has five 5mm LEDs, much like the PB Blinky 5, but has only 3 facing directly back, with the other two at exactly right angles. Its brightness readings matched up pretty closely with the Blinky 5 as well, placing it squarely in the “not super bright but works” category. It has two flashing modes – a standard blink, and an alternating side-to-side which only flashes one LED at once. The latter is a bit of a gimmick – having only a single LED on at once severely diminishes the brightness, and leaves you without any rear-facing LEDs illuminated when either of the side-LEDs are going. A seat post and stay mount are both included mounting options.

With the side-mounted LEDs, this light does give off a very bright side profile, emitting 1000 lux at a 90 degree angle. The light has pretty poor visibility from anywhere between straight-on and the right angle though. Getting the batteries out was also a pain – the contacts seem to be very tight, and it’s hard to get a grasp on the batteries.

Note (Sept. 2015): The original Hotshot 2W is now discontinued. The new Hotshot 50 is nearly identical, but the flash mode outputs up to 50 lumens. In steady mode both lights output 30 lumens.

This is the only light I could find with a 2W LED, and this thing is bright. Or not – you can actually adjust the brightness and flash frequency on the go, which is one of its many compelling features. The Hotshot is powered by an internal rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which gives it an impressive runtime between charges, and has 4 different flash modes: single-flash, triple-flash, single-pulse, and an alternating bright/dim pulse. The flash frequency can be adjusted for each mode, and in solid mode the adjustment increases/decreases the brightness of the beam. The package is offered with two versions: one comes with a USB charging cable (compatible with any computer or standard USB power adapter), and the other comes with the cable and a wall charger adapter. Almost everyone has a computer with USB ports or an existing cell phone or light charger with a USB adapter though, so I recommend saving $6 and getting the version with just the cable.

This light has a 1/2W main LED, with two 5mm secondary LEDs. It has a solid mode which only activates the center LED, and a flashing mode which rapidly alternates between the secondary LEDs and a double-pulse of the center LED. This light was also very popular in the poll, and I see it around a lot.

This light gets a lot of things right. The flash pattern is attention-grabbing without being painful. The button is nice and clicky, and easy to use with gloves on. The batteries are fairly simple to remove, and last a reasonably long time – although the light dimmed after about 72 hours, it held on for 130 hours before becoming too feeble to see.

This light is literally the cheapest light I could find. I went on Amazon, found the bike lights store, sorted by “lowest price,” and this is what came up. Unsurprisingly, this $3 light was not particularly bright, but it was better than I expected. It put out 800 lux, placing it ahead of the more expensive Knog Frog, and almost on par with the Cateye Reflex.

The light comes with a simple seat post mount. It’s powered by AA batteries, which are a bit of a rarity in the tail light arena. The upside of its low brightness and larger batteries is that it lasts a long time. It held on for 81 hours before starting to lose its luster, and kept going for another 40 hours after that.

I’ve rarely seen Blackburn lights in the wild, but according to my poll, they’re fairly popular, so I thought I’d give one a try. The Mars 4.0 is Blackburn’s latest taillight offering, powered by a central 1W LED, and an amber mini-LED on each side.

The Mars 4.0 has only two modes: solid, and blinking. The blink mode isn’t particularly exciting – just a slow on/off, but what it lacks in flashiness, it makes up for in brightness: the Mars was the 2nd brightest light (from the front position) tested. Despite having additional side-LEDs, the side visibility was not any better than similar lights – the miniature amber lights were dim and hardly visible from a distance.

The light is compatible with all of Cateye's assorted mounting options, but only comes with the flex-lock mount, which is a narrow band of plastic which can be wrapped around a seatpost and then tightened with a plastic nut. The mount seemed reasonably sturdy, although I would have preferred a more traditional seatpost mount. The Rapid 3 is powered by a single easy-access AA battery, which is probably why it had such poor battery performance. The light only lasted about 20 hours on rapid mode before becoming too dim to be useful.

It isn't the best performance for your money, but is a bright and easy to use light. The low-power option is a nice perk for people who often ride in groups and want to be seen without blinding their followers. The Rapid 3 is one of Cateye's newer lights. It has a center high-power LED (probably 1 watt, but unspecified), and one low-power 5mm LED on each side. This was one of the brightest lights tested. It includes a solid mode which only turns on the center LED, a "rapid" mode which flashes all three, and a low-power mode which only flashes the 5mm LEDs. This mode is not as bright, but saves power and is good when biking with a group or on a multi-use trail where you would want to avoid blinding fellow cyclists.

The Rapid 5 is also a new product, and is very similar to the Rapid 3 (above). Cateye claims that it uses the same lights as the Rapid 3, but adds an extra 2 chip LEDs, one on either side of the light. From my testing, it appears that the central high-power LED on this light actually puts out less light than the Rapid 3 does. The overall measured light output from the Rapid 5 was about 2/3 of the Rapid 3. This measurement is partially due to the light from the Rapid 5 being more diffuse, due to its wider design - the light meter does not measure wide angles quite as well. Overall though, even just from looking with the bare eye, this light is less bright than its smaller brother.

Despite being dimmer than the Rapid 3, this was still one of the brighter lights, clocking in at 8150 lux from the front, and an impressive 600 lux from 45 degrees. Battery life was also much better in the Rapid 5, which started to dim after about 74 hours on rapid mode, and didn't die completely for another 30 hours after that. Batteries are also very easy to replace in this light: a small cover can be pulled off by hand, and the batteries slide in horizontally. The Rapid 5 had more flashing options as well: solid mode (which only uses 3 of the 5 LEDs), a steady pulsing mode which alternates between partial and full brightness, rapid mode which quickly alternates all 5 LEDs, and a flashing mode which blinks all 5 LEDs at once.

The Radbot 1000 holds a blindingly bright 1W LED, and puts a large reflector on the bottom half of the light to provide passive visibility even when the light is off. This light is painfully bright – I know because I put it on a friend’s bike during the review, and following her with the light on was a dizzying experience.

The Radbot has a solid-on mode, and two different flash patterns – a rapidly flashing mode, and a mode that alternates between a bright pulse and several rapid flashes. These are some of the most attention-grabbing flash patterns I’ve seen.